Letter to the Editor: Chutes and Ladders

Chutes and Ladders is a game that many of us played as children. Indeed, many of us still play it with our children or our relatives’ children. For those not familiar with the game, you play by getting around the board using a series of upward-moving ladders and downward-moving slides. If you play the game right, you make it to the finish line before your opponents do. Make it through the obstacles first, you win. Pretty simple, right?

Well, I play Chutes and Ladders every day, in a much different way: I commute from Beaverton every morning.

To get to campus, I have to take the 62 bus to Sunset Transit Center and then take the Blue or Red MAX Line to Pioneer Square. From there, I catch the Yellow or Green MAX to campus. So far, so good, right?

Here comes my pity party. At 6 years old, I was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a type of muscular dystrophy that prohibits my ability to grow new muscle mass. I’m 26 now, and since the age of 10 I’ve been dependent on a wheelchair for mobility. Getting around our hilly campus can be quite challenging.

Anyway, back to our game of Chutes and Ladders.

At 7:45 a.m., I get off the MAX at the Urban Plaza stop so I can get to class, in Science Building 1, by 8:00 a.m. Because I’m unable to propel myself up the ramp from the Green Line Market to Cafe Yumm, I head into the Urban Center Building, grab the elevator and hit the button for the second floor. From there, I take the skybridge over Pizzicato and the streetcar to another elevator that lets me out just north of Cafe Yumm.

Then I cross Sixth Avenue, enter the Education and Business Administration Building to my left and grab an elevator to the fourth floor. Another skybridge takes me over Broadway to Cramer Hall’s third floor. From there I take the elevator down to the first floor and, finally, roll across the Park Blocks to Science Building 1.

In essence, I’ve traversed the upward grade that lies between Southwest Fifth Avenue and Broadway: Chutes and Ladders.

Let’s say I have class at 5th Avenue Cinema 10 minutes after my class in Neuberger Hall. To get there I must roll downhill from the south side of Neuberger so I can enter the back entrance to the Center for Student Health and Counseling. There, I take an elevator to the third floor, then head south past the student testing center to another elevator. This elevator takes me to the street across from Ondine Residence Hall. By doing this, I’ve avoided a prohibitive grade. To get to 5th Avenue Cinema, I cross the street, enter the building and hit the button on the loud freight elevator that somehow compensates me for the building’s lack of a wheelchair-accessible ramp.

I haven’t mentioned the difficulty involved in taking classes in Ondine. If any reader knows how to go from the street to the second floor of that building without using a staircase, I’ll be impressed.

This is what I call my personal game of Chutes and Ladders. This last week, I grabbed the elevator at the bottom of the EDBA building so I could use the skybridge on the fourth floor that connects that building to Neuberger. I took the little ADA ramp down to Neuberger’s second floor.

Then, I waited. And waited…and continued to wait for more than 10 minutes for an elevator that would take me to the third floor. During this time I watched three elevators go by, full of passengers with full use of their legs. I was more than five minutes late to my class on the
third floor.

Although my tale of the Neuberger elevator is unique, I can regurgitate similar experiences from any day in most any building. Once, in Cramer Hall, I waited for 10 minutes as elevator after elevator passed by, full of able-bodied individuals. I wait for elevators in Smith Memorial Student Union, science buildings 1 and 2, and Neuberger and Lincoln halls.

Understand, I’m a busy student and didn’t wish to write this editorial, as 19 credits already demand most of my time.

I’m not sure if I am becoming what you might call “prejudiced” toward bipeds. I am becoming genuinely unhappy with those of you who can use your legs, but simply choose not to. Try to understand that more colorful rhetoric has come to mind, but calling you out on in the heat of the moment probably wouldn’t do any good.

All bipeds, please understand: I respect and appreciate your ability to use amenities like staircases. Elevators are an integral part of the intricate network of Chutes and Ladders that allow me to get from where I am to where I need to be.

Given that other people need to use the same network to get from one place to another, I ask that you take the damn stairs!

Sincerely,

Gabriel Rousseau,

Community development and social sciences senior